Steve Paxton and contact improvisation

At the start of the lesson we were showed contact improvisation videos and the class was shocked at how intune they were and that it all looked planned and not improvised. The key is the focus with your partner and to sense what the person will do next and know how the other person reacts to your movements. A way of getting to understand this is columbian hypnosis where your head stays two inches away from your partners hand so you follow their movements. Because you had to focus soo much and following the other person you went into a trance and when they staopped you felt really confused. During this we also learned about how much your partner could move and their limitations.

The  performers also share a vocabulary of practised contact work so that ones you have shown the other person what you are trying to do they can understand and do the contact.

Vocabulary

1. Sitting back to back with you partner and pushing against each other to stand up and sit back down. I personally found it very hard because we accedentally went over each other which lickily we could actually use in our vocabulary. 
2. We sat on our bottoms with our legs bent faceing each other and holding hands in front. From there we pulled each other up and down with a seesaw motion.
3. One person would lean forward with a flat back for the other to balance on. We first did it with them both back to back and the lifted person ballanced. But later we also did it where the lifted person balances their hips on the others persons back and balanced on their front.
4. Both stand side ways on to each other hip to hip and one lifts the other off the floor
5. For those who have prier experience triend more complicated lifts like areplanes. One was on the floor on their back as the otherwent into a crucific shape above them. This can be varied with doing it backwards and with one leg.

When we performed our improvisation it was clear to see how the focused groups movements were very fluid and those who didnt were much more rushed and not controlled. The next lesson we told a story through our contact work. We practised walking to a chair and sitting down exactly the same as each other to focus our selves. We we performed we made the story about me stealing her shoe and she kept having to try to reach across we to get if back and their was alot of tug of war.

Character Masks

The goal in this was give life to a mask and allow the mask to take over you. We took it in turns to put on masks look in the mirror and find out what expression suited it the act that out. It's a very strange experience because you go into a trance and your mask is telling you what toy to pick up and what to do. By telling us tht the masks were dangerous and that they had power. Convincing that it had the power to completely transform you. When you had to try and controll someone else they were just wild animals. From the moment you put the mask on till when you take it off you are the mask. When I put on my mask I was a very cheeky and naughty creature and when I chose a word it was bannanas just because it is completely crazy. The person that was looking after the masked interveiwed us and I found it very easy to only reply with my chosen word but more than that I was messing around with the other people in the group. The masks were then asked where they wanted to go and mine was very much a child a wanted to go to the park. She constantly tried to escape her carer and attack the other people. I think the transformation was soo effective because we were all able to draw from our subconcious. Being so spontanious that it does't feel like we are doin it at all with no controle.
Drawing from the subconcious is very simular to butoh with the performer showing an amost dream like state. How the character masks tern the performer into a kind of wild animal is simular to the desired effect on the audience in theatre of cruelty.

Commedia Dell’Arte

( Comedy of the craft)

Commedia Dell'Arte is a form of theatre that began in Italy in the year 1560, characterized by masked "types", the advent of the actress and improvised performances based on sketches or scenarios. It became the first entirely professional form of theatre and is commonly referred to as the origin of comedy.Sometimes the performers were referred to as "mountebanks" because they played outside on temporary stages, and relied on various props in place of extensive scenery. They used short funny sketches called lazzis between the main shows which are very familiar stories that are repeated but each group has their own interpretations. Three main ones are the rotton tooth, the fly and one where certain characters are drunk.
They use exagerated movements so that you can tell the story from afar and also to catch the audiences attention when they walk past them. The set characters are used so that they are easily identified quickly. During a warm up we did walks to show differnt emotions for example with happiness you would run and jump and skip, however if you were sad you were very slow, slouched and looked down a lot. We did this to introduce us to how the character walks are used to show emotion. Each character has set movements to further help identify them. They use half masks to show the characters even more my physical features like the long nose, or round almost swollen features. Most of the characters had with them a certain stereotype like the old perverted man, the hansom but dumb hero/ prince. To help us to physically embody these some students were taken out of the class and asked to show a stereotype that the rest of the class had to ques just by holding a pose. I was one of these students and I was given the sterotype of jock. I decided to do a persition of a muscly man kissing his biceps or often refered to as their guns.

Characters

	Zanni The character of Zanni was an older, impoverished man and hired servant of one of the other characters, typically Pantalone. Zanni's costume was loosely fitting white smock and pants. He wore a black mask similar to his more popular descendant, Arlecchino. His behavior is a cartoon imitation of the impoverished rural folk of Bergamo who were forced to move to Venice in order to make a living. As such, his interests do not always coincide with those of his master. His primary goals are his own comfort and the satisfaction of various immediate desires.
	Pantalone Pantalone is one of the most important principal characters found in commedia del arte comedies. With his exceptional greed and status at the top of the social order, Pantalone is "money" in the commedia world. The costume of Pantalone brings his most ominous features to life. Pantalone is the most constant character within the commedia world, which is presumably why his costume has not been dramatically altered. He traditionally wears red tights and a red jacket, and at his belt, a dagger or sword. He wears a black hat and a black cloak with black slippers or shoes. A brown, muddy colored mask, complete with a hooked nose and beard or mustache completes Pantalone's traditional look. Some variations have been recorded, including "additions of spectacles and a [money] pouch".
	Il Capitano Il Capitano often talks at length about made up conquests of both the militaristic and carnal nature in attempts to impress others, but often only ends up impressing himself. He gets easily carried away in his tales and doesn't realise when those around him don't buy his act. He would be the first to run away from any and all battles and he has trouble enough talking to and being around women.
	Columbine  She is Harlequin's mistress, a comic servant playing the tricky slave type, and wife of Pierrot. Rudlin and Crick. She is dressed in a ragged and patched dress appropriate to a hired servant. Occasionally, under the name Arlecchina she would wear a motley similar to her counterpart Arlecchino (or Harlequin). She was also known to wear heavy makeup around her eyes and carry a tambourine which she could use to fend off the amorous advances of Pantalone. She was often the only functional intellect on the stage. Columbina aided her mistress, the innamorata, to gain the affections of her one true love by manipulating Arlecchino and counter-plotting against Pantalone while simultaneously managing the whereabouts of the innamorato. She may be a flirtatious and impudent character, indeed a soubrette, but without losing her judgment.
	Pulcinella His main characteristic, from which he acquired his name, is his extremely long nose, which resembles a beak. Ever white dressed and black masked (hence conciliating the opposites of life and death), he stands out thanks to his peculiar voice, the sharp and vibrant qualities of which contribute intense tempo of the show. According to Pierre Louis Duchartre, his traditional temperament is to be mean, vicious, and crafty: his main mode of defense is to pretend to be too stupid to know what's going on, and his secondary mode is to physically beat people.

Lecoq mime work and neutrek Masks

The aim of useing masks was to create a blank canvas and to learn how to mime only through your actions. First we walked across the room as we would naturalyy with the masks on and and the class analysed our works. I looked at Rachels walk and she had quite a bouncey walk which could show that she has a happy, positive personality. Next Andy spoke a story and the whole group improvised and acted it out through our bodies as we had the mask's on. The idea of the blank canvas is to strip a person of their personality so that they can build a character on top of it.

To show us how we can tell stories in mime Andy gave us a short mime and we guessed what was happening and what he did to show it. Andy vey clearly showed that he was on some kind of busy street it was raining and he put his umbrella up. The also kept going into buildings and used his face to show that he was looking for something. The show the rain he held out his hand and reacted to the weather and he reacted with people going past him so that we knew their were a lot of people.
We were then asked to produced our own mimes based on the idea of a bartender. The mime would be a sequence of still persitions as te teacher counted 1,2,3 ... I personally liked Alys's mime the most because of how in one part she was doing some tricks and she waited like three still's before this thing came back down.